Resource: Forging Futures
The Next Generation of Pathways
Over the past decade, states and school districts have been hard at work to better integrate career readiness into the student experience, building pathways that aim to prepare young people for a rapidly changing workforce.
The field has come a long way; but the full promise of pathways has not yet been realized, and a number of critical questions remain.
What would it look like for every student—regardless of their career ambitions or plans beyond high school—to be on a high-quality pathway?
How can we dismantle the false dichotomy between career pathways experiences and college prep programs, removing the perceived either/or choice for students?
What needs to happen in the next decade of this work to deliver on that promise?
Forging Futures: The Next Generation of Pathways builds on Education Strategy Group’s decade of deep expertise leading pathways work in states and communities across the country to offer a new vision for the future. The report lays out five critical priorities to drive the work moving forward. The next generation of pathways must:
- Position and empower every student to graduate high school on a pathway to success, having completed a culminating work-based learning experience, earned college credit, and attained a credential of value aligned to their pathway.
- Carry forward students’ credentials and skills from secondary through postsecondary and into the workforce, accelerating students’ paths to valuable careers.
- Build student agency and ability to navigate career options, develop future-resilient skills, and leverage social capital to pursue a life of opportunity.
- Recalibrate the role of employers to strategically harness their market intelligence and industry insights and enable them to more easily provide students with career-exposure and work-based learning experiences.
- Redesign measures of high school success to focus more directly on postsecondary preparation and success after high school.
The full report includes more detail on each of these five core ideas, including key strategies and recommended action steps for state, local, and intermediary leaders.
